The Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court Senate confirmation hearings reminds me a lot of another congressional hearing in the early 1990s. No, I’m not talking about Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill. I’m thinking of the testimony by the 15-year-old Nayirah al-Ṣabaḥ in 1990, just prior to the United States first war in Iraq. To understand this comparison, we need to recall the lead up to it and the many lies that were told to start that war.

Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 after accusing them of stealing their oil. Kuwait had been using advanced horizontal drilling techniques that allowed them to drill billions of dollars’ worth from Iraq’s oil fields near their shared boarder.

At first, the US had no position in the war, as it had no valid reason to protect Kuwait. Really, the US even supported Iraq’s invasion.

President George H.W. Bush wanted higher oil prices because Kuwaiti’s drilling was keeping the price suppressed and devastating profits of the Texas oil companies. At that time, the US even worked to suppress accusations that Iraq was committing atrocities within its country. It flat out encouraged Iraq to invade in its private conversations so that they could stop Kuwait from drilling. After taking supportive queues from the US State Department, Iraq overstepped, seeking to annex the whole country.

The US quickly took a 180, assuming its typical pro-active propaganda posture, releasing damning information in such a way as to create reinforcing narratives, eventually resulting in an insatiable demand for war. Read More »

Every election cycle, voters hope that a savior or an organized group of righteous elites will come along and reinvigorate the economy, raise wages, restore communities, and reform broken institutions. When these bearers of hope fail to provide even a modest reprieve, the cycle begins anew. They hope that the next Clinton, the next Obama, and now Trump, will finally represent them. Every time the disappointment is greater and the resulting desperation more profound.

People trapped in collapsing societies will latch on to anything that can give them hope. And when leaders betray the people they are supposed to represent over and over again, the people eventually surrender to what anthropologists call crisis cults. Crisis cults form when large numbers of people, desperate for restoration of growth and success, surrender to magical thinking. They believe that an apocalypse will remake the world, punishing evil doers and restoring a moral society. It’s the final stage in the psychology of a society before complete madness and collapse.

The most famous crisis cult in American history is the Ghost Dance of 1890. It was practiced by Native Americans after the US government broke the Treaty of Fort Laramie. Facing starvation after having their lands taken away and the destruction of the buffalo, the Lakota tribe turned to this newly invented ritual that would cause the ghost of their dead ancestors to return and fight the white man. Read More »

By now, most people reading this will have heard of the Alt-right. Are they really just racist trolls, or are they the right wing version of Occupy Wall Street: young, technologically savvy, and a bit counterculture? Perhaps they are both or neither depending on who you ask, but the Alt-right is defined less by their beliefs (which are varied) and more by how they spread information.

There is a small, but growing segment of the Alt-right which has begun to take black or chaos magick very seriously. Laugh if you must, but these would be techno-warlocks and witches have collectively devoted perhaps hundreds of thousands of hours in the creation and sharing of magickal* sigils with the intention of altering reality. They call them memes, but the effect, they would argue, is essentially the same.

Through “meme magic” and a liberal interpretation of quantum mechanics, the Alt-right believe they are successfully reshaping reality. First, they got a reality TV show host nominated for President and then finally succeeding in getting him elected, placing him at the head of the world’s largest empire. Motivations for getting Trump elected range from legitimately believing he would make a good president to the more nihilistic “doing it for the lulz.” Again, ideology doesn’t define the Alt-right. It’s their methods which set them apart from the traditional right wing. Read More »

It’s now widely recognized that there is a kind of Cold-Civil War going on now within the US government, between President Donald Trump and the intelligence community, which has become increasingly adversarial.

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, an establishment writer who has long defended the CIA, provided the early details of national security adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn’s phone call with a Russian ambassador. The leaking of this information was certainly illegal and was acquired using warrantless wiretap methods that itself would have been illegal just a few years ago. While it is unlikely that Flynn committed any illegal acts, his failure to be forthcoming about the discussion ultimately resulted in his resignation. It embarrassed the President and further added to the belief that there is unethical, illegal, or even treasonous behavior going on between Trump and Russia.

“Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community — they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”

This echoes what I’ve been saying for years now; mass surveillance isn’t about terrorism or crime, but about acquiring ammunition for political blackmail. Mass surveillance like the PRISM program hasn’t had a measurable impact on crime or terrorism, but it has allowed the intelligence community to tighten its grip on the country’s politicians.

This kind of conflict between the executive branch and the intelligence community isn’t unprecedented. Some of what is happening is reminiscent of the Nixon era. President Nixon was also at odds with what he called the “the east coast liberals”, which includes not only newspapers and television, but also Wall Street and the intelligence community. Originally from California, Nixon hated them, but recognized and feared their power, and their potential for violence.

It is wildly ineffective to try and convince people that Trump is dangerous if protesters carry Mexican flags while burning US flags, smash storefronts, and are photographed acting in an even mildly threatening demeanor. Effective protest have to work just like political campaigns. They have to be unoffensive, measured, and carry a ‘common-man’ sensibility. Based on what I’ve seen, these protests (and most protests of the modern era) fail to meet these standards. It only takes a few knuckleheads with a “Rape Melania” sign to undermine thousands of simultaneous protests around the country.

But convincing Americans that Trump is bad is not the intention of these protests. Rather the tactics being deployed here are similar to the ones used in the so called “color revolutions.” These acts are meant to provide cover for more official action by connected elites still reeling from their loss last Tuesday.

In Michael Moore’s words, the protesters are attempting to push Trump out of the White House. One plan being floated is to pressure the Electoral College to vote against voter’s wishes in favor of electing the war criminal and Wall Street lackey Hillary Clinton. If we assume that these protest are not protests against any particular policy, but instead are part of a larger plan to cause government officials to invalidate the US election, then the tactics being used make more sense. The intent isn’t to convince anyone of anything, but rather to provide cover for the system to act. Read More »

The biggest winner of the 2016 election is the anarchist. Despite what you think of Trump, there can be no doubt: globalism is dead. The anarchist’s centuries long battle against the centralization of power has finally turned in his favor. The power elite may never recover from this defeat.

However crude his presidency may turn out to be, Donald Trump’s election stopped trade deals like the TPP and shattered any hope of a global government in the near future. Very likely, we will soon end Obamacare and its mandate for people to buy a criminally overpriced product. Massachusetts, Nevada, and California legalized marijuana for recreational sale and use and it’s likely to spread further. In every respect, the enemies of government have won.

It is not an exaggeration to suggest that this election may signal a new political and economic paradigm for the entire human race. If you think this is a shocking overstatement, hear me out. Read More »

This election may or may not be revolutionary in the traditional sense, a hinge point where history seems to take a turn, or at least changes shape in its endless push toward “progress.” But one thing is for sure: it has been incredibly instructive in giving us observers a view into how power really functions.

It turns out that the major political and social scientists of the last 60 years were right. Here are just two of the ways where they predicted the evolution of our political process:

Lewis Mumford Accurately Described ‘The Machine’

This is the big one. We won’t recount Mumford’s entire theory here, but the gist of his argument is that the various machines protect one another. The media protects the banks, which protects the government, which protects the corporations, and so on. The result is a kind of hyper-resilient mesh of governing structures which are highly resistant to reform. They all have their own individual motivations, but all support the expansion of centralized power and control.

Donald Trump keeps peddling the notion the vote may be rigged. It’s unclear whether he understands the potential damage of his words, or simply doesn’t care…. Clinton and congressional Republicans, should they retain control, would be left trying to govern in a country divided not just by ideology, but also the legitimacy of the presidency.

God forbid this criminal government have its legitimacy imperiled! The horror. We might have people questioning whether our countless illegal wars are moral. People might even think they can govern themselves! The AP continues:

As Trump’s campaign careens from crisis to crisis, he’s broadened his unfounded allegations that Clinton, her backers and the media are conspiring to steal the election.

Unfounded. Wow. That’s plainly not true, and we have dozens, perhaps hundreds of emails both from the DNC hacks and the leaked Clinton email server that prove at least some soft collusion between the media and outfits like the CNN and the AP, as well as bloggers, and individual TV personalities. It defies the common sense of anyone paying attention. Read More »

If you’ve been paying attention, most of this information should come as no surprise, but I feel like things are moving so rapidly, it makes sense to repost what we know.

It seems hard to believe that less than a week ago, Hillary collapsed on camera into the arms of her handlers. Soon after, Don Fowler, who headed the DNC from 1995 to 1997, urged the party to come up with a process in the event that Hillary could no longer be the candidate. And they did so right away.

Unless otherwise noted, the following information comes from broadcast anchor Davis Shuster and all quotes are from his source. Read More »